


Sliced Halves, Light Syrup

by EvilMuffins



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Fluff, Forehead Kisses, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sharing a Bed, p5 secret santa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-22
Updated: 2017-12-22
Packaged: 2019-02-12 18:55:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12966153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EvilMuffins/pseuds/EvilMuffins
Summary: The delicate face of Goro Akechi belonged on his television- gentle voice serving as background noise while Yusuke painted on lonely evenings spent in his single-occupancy dorm room- not sprawled on the park grass after dark, frown crossing his lips at the cool touch of Yusuke’s fingertips against his forehead.---Yusuke stumbles across Akechi lying unconscious in the park late one evening.





	Sliced Halves, Light Syrup

**Author's Note:**

> Set early on in canon, quite a bit before Akechi joins the team.  
> I am capable of writing fluffy Akekita after all. Who knew. 
> 
> Written for [P5 Secret Santa](https://p5exchange.tumblr.com/), which I mod! /plug

“E-excuse me?” There came no response from the lifeless form slumped against the tree as Yusuke made haste to kneel down beside him, easel and freshly painted canvas put aside on the dirt. “Are you alright?”

By the flickering light of the park’s streetlamp, Yusuke realised that the boy looked oddly familiar, although putting a name to pallid face was second in importance to grasping his wrist below the leather of his glove in search for a pulse.

He was alive, then. After first stumbling upon him collapsed in the park, for a terrible moment Yusuke had feared that the boy may have been a target of mental shutdown.

Not certain what else to do, Yusuke began patting at his pockets in search of his phone, the pounding in his heart at discovering what he had thought to be a corpse now beginning to subside. However, coming up empty handed, Yusuke remembered that he had left the device back in his dorm after having been unable to pay the service bill for the month.

Perhaps it was just as well, he thought. The boy may have been angry upon waking up to find that an ambulance had come to collect him. While the ride would be free, any care he might receive at the hospital would likely add up. Yusuke knew that he would have been perturbed himself, to have woken up in a hospital bed the last time he had passed out from hunger and over-work while in class.

Feeling a sudden blossoming of kinship with the young man, Yusuke reached out, brushing long bangs out of his face. In doing so, a wave of miss-matched realisation washed over him, much like the time he had seen one of his teachers while out shopping.

The delicate face of Goro Akechi belonged on his television- gentle voice serving as background noise while Yusuke painted on lonely evenings spent in his single-occupancy dorm room- not sprawled on the park grass after dark, frown crossing his lips at the cool touch of Yusuke’s fingertips against his forehead.

He was one of Akira’s friends, wasn’t he? It could be hard to tell with Akira at times. At the very least, he had mentioned Akechi stopping by the café with increasing frequency, although he and Yusuke had only passed by each other once as Akechi was on his way out. Still, friend or not, there was no way that Yusuke could just leave him lying there.

“ _Akechi,”_ Yusuke urged, continuing to press his hand to Akechi’s forehead, hoping to garner more of a response. This came almost immediately in the form of a soft groan as Akechi’s eyes began to flutter open.

“Who…?” he mumbled as Yusuke lowered his hand, replaced instead by Akechi’s own, rubbing at his eyelids before blinking a time or two more. “…Kitagawa?”

“I’m glad to see you awake,” Yusuke explained, relief evicting the worry that had settled into his stomach. “I was just on my way out of the park after completing a painting, when I came across you unconscious here on the path. Do you think that you might be able to stand?”

“I think so…” Akechi said, pushing himself up into a seated position, although still somewhat dazed, blinking up at the moths dancing around the streetlight.

Noticing this, Yusuke shuffled nearer, before unceremoniously sliding his arm underneath Akechi shoulder.

“I’m fine, really!” Akechi protested, although it did little stop Yusuke from helping him up. “I was just getting over a little head cold and overshot how long I should be out in the night air, that’s all.”

“My apologies. This is merely an old habit from helping my former sensei up off the couch when his joints would act up.” Despite this, he continued holding onto the shorter boy, the quaking in Akechi’s limbs doing little to convince Yusuke in letting go of his slight form, lest he topple over once more. It wasn’t as if he were a burden to support, being as light as he was. “Forgive my asking, but…have you eaten anything recently?”

Yusuke was no stranger to becoming faint from hunger, the sensation and himself having become fine acquaintances over the past months.

A cheerful grin crossed Akechi’s face as he finally wormed his way free from Yusuke’s grasp. “I was actually just on my way back home for dinner, so if you’ll please just excuse me…”

“Allow me to accompany you, then,” Yusuke said, gathering up his fallen painting supplies as Akechi turned to leave. “I can’t in good conscience allow you walk back all on your own while you're feeling unwell.”

Akechi paused for a moment, back still turned. “In that case, why don’t we go back to your place, Kitagawa?” he suggested over his shoulder. “Since this is your idea and all. I’m afraid that my place isn’t really fit for guests at the moment. You know how it is.” He waved off-handedly, turning back to face Yusuke.

Yusuke did, in fact, know how it was. Living alone as he was, his own place had descended into something nearly indistinguishable from a Pollock painting. He really did need to remember to pick up the used drop cloths before next dorm inspection… Even so, the mess wasn’t enough to stop him from feeling still somewhat responsible for Akechi. Did her perhaps live alone as well? “Alright then. …But what of your dinner?”

Akechi shrugged. “It’s not like I’d be moving in permanently, Kitagawa. I’ll return home after you’re satisfied that I’m really going to be okay.”

* * *

 

Rush hour long over, the crowd on the platform had thinned to the point of being useless for people-watching while they waited for their train, Yusuke silently lamented, eyes finding their way back onto Akechi after having finished appraising the smattering of travelers around them.

Surely someone as famous as Akechi could afford to buy himself food, so why then should he collapse of hunger? Yusuke wondered. He was certainly good looking enough without need for a diet. In fact, the pensive expression he wore while staring at the tracks held far more appeal than the smiles he had produced while in the park. Perhaps once back in Yusuke’s apartment, he might bring up the possibility of sketching him...

As Yusuke continued to size up Akechi’s soft features, he caught a shudder run through his companion’s shoulders. Although it was still summer, the nights were growing nippy, and a sleeveless vest would do little to help keep one’s arms warm.

Wriggling out of his striped blazer, Yusuke laid it across Akechi’s shoulders.

“You looked cold,” he explained, an answer to the question in Akechi's wide eyes. Whatever Akechi was about to say in response was swallowed up by the roar of the train as it pulled in.

“You won’t be sitting?” Yusuke asked, after seeing Akechi grab onto an overhead strap, despite the car being as abandoned as the station.

“I always stand,” Akechi replied as if it were obvious, using his free hand to readjust the blazer over his shoulders, having slid as he shrugged. “It helps me think, I guess.”

“Does it, now?” Yusuke said, rising to join him. “Would you say that’s the key to proper deduction, allowing the blood from your head to pool around your ankles instead?”

Akechi laughed. “Mm-hmm. You've discovered the secret to my detective work! Just don't tell anyone, alright?”

Yusuke nodded, a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

The two fell silent for a time, the only sound in the car the occasional cough from an older man seated on the far end.

“If you don’t mind my asking, what were you doing out so late on a weeknight?” Yusuke asked after a time.

“I’m afraid that’s classified, Kitagawa,” Akechi smiled, checking his phone, before returning it to his back pocket. “I am a detective, after all, despite the whole dog and pony show on TV.”

“Fair enough.” It wasn’t as if Yusuke didn’t have secrets of own, after all. In fact, it occurred to him then that he should do well to be more mindful when dealing with someone in Akechi’s line of work.

As he continued to mull this over, Yusuke caught himself nearly nodding off on his feet, the rhythmic sounds of the train, combined with the gentle rocking sensation as it hurried along the tracks doing little to keep him from it.

In general, Yusuke had to admit that he wasn’t terribly skilled at estimating when the next stop would be coming up. Try as he might, he found that studying something outside the window, or a fellow passenger wearing a particularly daring hat, always proved far more interesting than watching the minutes tick by until his arrival at the station. So, it stood to reason that when his current train did pull into the station, Yusuke was caught completely unprepared, gravity shoving his weary form straight into that of Akechi, sending the two of them tottering over backward onto on one of the empty seats.

“If your goal in taking me home with you was to make sure that I didn’t fall over again, I think you might’ve failed,” came the voice of Akechi from behind him, after first having let out an undignified sound of surprise.

“My apologies. It would seem that I was beginning to nod off,” Yusuke said, reluctantly extracting himself from Akechi’s lap, remembering that in general, most people don’t appreciate that level of contact for any length of time.  A shame, really, as Akechi’s thighs had been surprisingly comfortable for belonging to someone who refused to feed himself properly.

Although Yusuke held out a hand to help Akechi up for the second time that night, he refused it just as he refused to meet Yusuke's eyes. "I think that maybe I will just sit for a while..."

No argument came Yusuke, taking note of the flush crossing Akechi's face as the train took off once more.

* * *

 

After finally arriving at their stop, it took only a short walk to Yusuke’s dorm. 

“Does it really take that many keys to open up one door?” Akechi asked, bemused, upon seeing Yusuke sort through his keyring in search of the correct one.

“If you must know," Yusuke said, fitting the proper key into the lock, "the rest belong to a locker containing mementos of my mother. I switch out the padlock on occasion, so I find it easier to carry all of the keys, rather than risk the loss of any one.” Replacing the ring on his belt-loop, Yusuke ushered Akechi inside, “After you.”

“Well, this is certainly…colorful,” Akechi commented once Yusuke had flipped on the lights.

"Thank you. Please, take a seat,” Yusuke said, taking Akechi's words as a compliment, before realising that first moving the teetering stack of art books off of the room’s singular chair might be in order. The dorm had not come pre-furnished, however Yusuke had found himself in the good fortune of visiting Leblanc on the same day that Sojiro had ordered a set of new chairs. This led to the discovery that people tended to give one odd looks when carrying a battered old chair onto the train, but it had certainly been well worth it. The chair hadn't stayed battered for long however, as Yusuke had painted each leg in a different color, in order to match the rest of his aesthetically make-shift décor.

“You know, my mother passed away too, a long time ago,” Akechi said suddenly, ignoring the chair in favor of browsing the overflowing bookshelf beside it as he spoke, tone far too upbeat for the subject matter. “I really had no idea that you and I had so much in common!”

“I’m very sorry to hear to that,” Yusuke replied, wondering why Akechi seemed to be warming up to him just now, after being so eager to get away from him in the park.

“No need for that,” Akechi said, shedding Yusuke's blazer to drape it over the back of the chair, before settling down with a book once the seat had been fully cleared, “She hated me anyway, so it’s just as well.”

Yusuke crossed his arms, thinking back for a moment as Akechi flipped through the pages. “Are you certain?”

“Of what?” Akechi crossed one leg over the other, and Yusuke was fairly certain that he was leafing through pages far too quickly to actually process any of the paintings pictured on them.

“That she indeed hated you, as you say. I have a dear friend who once thought similar, only to later find out that she had remembered incorrectly. Her mother had in fact cared for her very much.” Yusuke hoped that this was case for Akechi as well. Although Yusuke had hardly had enough time with his mother, he loved her deeply, just as Futaba did her own.

Akechi looked up finally, and Yusuke thought that he saw something odd flash in his eyes before he spoke. “It’s really refreshing talking with someone like you, Kitagawa.”

“Oh?” Yusuke was somewhat taken-aback. With the exception of his friends in the Phantom Thieves, people generally went out of their way to avoid speaking with him at all, hardly long enough to find him anything approaching 'refreshing'.

“I mean, the adults I hang around with are all so cynical,” Akechi explained in response to Yusuke's blank expression.

“Yes, well,” Yusuke said, moving into what a generous realtor might call a ‘quaint kitchenette’, though it consisted of little more than a hotplate and microwave, “Despite all of your time spent around adults, you’re still too young to be skipping meals.”

Yusuke, of course, was hardly one to lead by example, as the only edible thing left in the room being a solitary can of expired peaches, floating apologetically in their own juices.

The book closed with a snap. “You know, if I had also chosen to attend Kousei, I’d be your senpai so I don’t really think you should be-“

Drwoing out the rest of Akechi's scolding, the can opener kicked up into a whir, liberating the fruit which was soon split evenly between two bowls, one of which Yusuke handed over to Akechi. “You should begin to feel better once you've eaten something.”

Akechi accepted the make-shift meal without argument, nibbling at the peaches bite by bite, almost daintily, as if he were used to being scrutinized while eating in overly-polite company.

In observing him, Yusuke realised that he had neglected his own portion. Stabbing a slice with his fork, he opened his mouth to eat it, before pausing to reconsider.

“Here,” he said, crossing the room in order to deposit it, alongside another few pieces, into Akechi’s dish. “I’m not terribly hungry tonight.”

“If you say so.” Akechi accepted the additional portion as easily as he did the first, to Yusuke’s satisfaction, a bemused smile crossing his guest's face as he did so.

As Yusuke returned to the edge of the bed in order to finish the remainder of his own peaches, he caught a glimpse of the time on his bedside clock. It had grown even later than he had thought. Now that Akechi had eaten something and rested for a bit, he should be alright to return to his place, shouldn’t he?

“I suppose you’ll be wanting to turn into bed soon,” Yusuke said. It was a school night, after all, if Akechi didn’t have some sort of shoot or interview in the morning instead.

“Oh no worries,” Akechi objected pleasantly, swallowing down the last peach slice. “I was just going to go home and read for a few hours. A little nap before school is really all I need.”

Yusuke was appalled. Although he wasn’t one to laze the day away in bed, he always found that a good night’s sleep did wonders, even on nights when he didn’t have time- or felt too guilty- to stop by for a meal on the house at Leblanc. The next time Akechi keeled over, it was going to be as a corpse if he kept up with this sort of lifestyle.

Setting his empty bowl on the nightstand, Yusuke stood abruptly, pulling down the bed's comforter in order to fluff up the pillow. “You’ll be sleeping here tonight.”

“Oh? Will I now?” Akechi raised a skeptical brow.

“Why, yes. Because the next time you’re featured on the news, it’s going to be as part of a report stating how they found your body on the street, and I do not wish to feel accountable... Unless, there’s someone at home awaiting your return?”

Although an image flashed in Yusuke’s mind of Morgana curled up at the foot of Akira’s bed, somehow or another, Akechi struck him as more of dog person.

Akechi let out a bitter laugh. “No, no one like that, I’m afraid.” As Akechi stood from the chair, Yusuke caught him gripping the back of it briefly, eyes squinting shut for a moment, as if still fighting off some lingering lightheadedness, before flashing a smile instead. “I’ve never had a sleepover before. Should be fun.”

After washing up in the small bathroom, Akechi returned, making his way over to inspect the bed. “Where were you planning to sleep?” he asked, giving the woefully flat pillow a dubious pat.

“The floor will suffice,” Yusuke said, beginning to roll up one of the splattered drop-cloths lining the floor.

As Akechi slid under the sheets, Yusuke found himself remembering back to a few months ago, when he had stayed the night with Akira, and how he had gone out of his way to make certain that Yusuke was comfortable.

“Is there anything that I can get for you?”

“What else could you possibly do for me, Kitagawa?" Akechi chuckled. "Kiss me good night? Read me a story? You’ve already given up your bed on my account.”

“I could,” Yusuke offered softly, sitting down on the foot of the bed, immediately rethinking his choice to sleep on the floor. Worn as the mattress was, sinking down onto it would feel terribly nice after a long day at school, followed by an evening of homework in the park, all before aiding Akechi. He cleared his throat, “Once upon a time, there lived a fox, and a crow-“

“On second thought,” Akechi pulled the covers up to his chin, turning over to face the wall, “Maybe just pretend that I’m not here. I know how that story goes- the fox eats the crow’s food. I think I’ve thought enough about food for one day, thank you very much.”

“Actually,” Yusuke said, standing to move to the head of the bed, “in some versions of the story, the fox dies at the end, divine retribution for his transgressions.”

“What are you doing?” Akechi asked, hint of panic rising in his voice as he pushed himself up onto his elbows in order to fix Yusuke with an incredulous stare.

“Pretending that you’re not here,” Yusuke stated, as if it were obvious, as he settled down under the covers as well.

“You really are something,” Akechi replied, tone more impressed than derisive, as he flopped back over, back pressing up against Yusuke’s side, hotter than it should have been just after climbing under cool sheets, and somehow, Yusuke had thought that there had originally been more space between Akechi and wall.

The only sound to be heard once Yusuke had reached over to turn off the lamp was that of Akechi's even breathing, and Yusuke was certain that he had already fallen off to sleep. It was in that moment that Yusuke realised that he never slept so close to another person before. Even when sleeping over at Akira's, the couch had been some feet away from Akira's bed. The gentle sound coming from beside him was hypnotic, causing Yusuke to become vaguely aware of the rise and fall of his own chest, slowing into a matching rhythm, the warmth of Akechi's back radiating deeply into his own bones, culminating in an odd sort of feeling tightly knotted up in his chest.

"Hey, Kitagawa," Akechi's words moments later roused Yusuke from the cusp of his own sleep. "Do you think that maybe we could... take a walk in the park together again sometime? I promise to make sure that I'm not half worked to death the next time."

Yusuke sat up, opening his eyes to find that they had adjusted to the darkness enough to see Akechi's face, half-buried into the corner of the single pillow, eyes still shut as the light from the streetlamp outside fell over him, casting him in an innocence that made it easy to forget the fact that he had already been through so much, all while being hardly a year older than Yusuke was.

"I think that I would enjoy that very much," Yusuke muttered, pausing to brush a stray hair behind his ear as he leaned forward, lips brushing over Akechi's temple.

"What was that about?" Akechi's eyes were certainly open now, although they were treated to nothing more than a view of the back of Yusuke's head, as he had already managed to settle back down facing the far side of the room.

"You listed a good night kiss among your desired amenities. What sort of host would I be to refuse?"

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr  
> https://evil-muffins.tumblr.com/  
> Twitter  
> https://twitter.com/mikan_komaeda


End file.
